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Dark Mountain #9
Dark Mountain: Issue 9
This issue takes the form of a classic Dark Mountain anthology, with new work from writers and artists around the world – stories and essays, poems, images and conversations – responding to the accelerating effects of climate change, mass extinction and societal dysfunction. ‘Humanity is going to be humbled one way or another,’ write the editors, ‘so we may as well begin the process ourselves.’
Humbleness comes from the Latin humus, meaning ‘earth’; so to be humble means to lay oneself low, but also to be grounded, to return to the solid and material. In their own ways, the art works, poems, stories and essays in this volume explore different ways of re-communion with the Earth. Here the certainties on which the edifices of civilisation teeter are replaced with the small, the unpretentious, the discomfiting.
Familiar names – Em Strang avoiding the global news to bear witness to more immediate worlds, Adam Dinan and Tom Smith investigating microbial life – and established figures like Derrick Jensen can be found alongside new contributors and fresh perspectives: Nadia Lucia Peralta on the ecstatic loss of self at carnival time, Fern Leigh Albert recording life off-grid in Dartmoor with her camera, and Claire Liss considering the evolution of plant medicine.
As we enter dark times, these disparate voices challenge the grand narratives of recrimination and despair, so that the universe appears afresh as a collection of wonders – bewildering objects, transforming passions and moments of transcendent awe. With such humbling comes a simplicity, a singleness of vision and a return to a more honest appraisal of what it means to be human.
As with all Dark Mountain publications, this book is a beautiful physical object, designed and typeset by our friends at Bracketpress in Lancashire, with colour plates for art works such as Rebecca Clark’s drawings, Rogan Brown’s ‘time fossils’ and landscapes by Kate Williamson. The contributors to Dark Mountain: Issue 9 include, amongst others, Patricia Robertson, Kim Goldberg, Bridget Khursheed, Ryan Vance and Holly Day.
The editors for this issue were Nancy Campbell, Charlotte Du Cann (art), Tom Smith, Em Strang (poetry) and Steve Wheeler.
Humbleness comes from the Latin humus, meaning ‘earth’; so to be humble means to lay oneself low, but also to be grounded, to return to the solid and material. In their own ways, the art works, poems, stories and essays in this volume explore different ways of re-communion with the Earth. Here the certainties on which the edifices of civilisation teeter are replaced with the small, the unpretentious, the discomfiting.
Familiar names – Em Strang avoiding the global news to bear witness to more immediate worlds, Adam Dinan and Tom Smith investigating microbial life – and established figures like Derrick Jensen can be found alongside new contributors and fresh perspectives: Nadia Lucia Peralta on the ecstatic loss of self at carnival time, Fern Leigh Albert recording life off-grid in Dartmoor with her camera, and Claire Liss considering the evolution of plant medicine.
As we enter dark times, these disparate voices challenge the grand narratives of recrimination and despair, so that the universe appears afresh as a collection of wonders – bewildering objects, transforming passions and moments of transcendent awe. With such humbling comes a simplicity, a singleness of vision and a return to a more honest appraisal of what it means to be human.
As with all Dark Mountain publications, this book is a beautiful physical object, designed and typeset by our friends at Bracketpress in Lancashire, with colour plates for art works such as Rebecca Clark’s drawings, Rogan Brown’s ‘time fossils’ and landscapes by Kate Williamson. The contributors to Dark Mountain: Issue 9 include, amongst others, Patricia Robertson, Kim Goldberg, Bridget Khursheed, Ryan Vance and Holly Day.
The editors for this issue were Nancy Campbell, Charlotte Du Cann (art), Tom Smith, Em Strang (poetry) and Steve Wheeler.
- GenresAnthologiesPoetry
296 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 18, 2016
After finishing a book like this, picking up any other book feels empty and insignificant. These stories trembled alive something that has resided deep within me, perhaps from my childhood. A flow of energy from the last remains of simplicity, when the sunshine was still yellow and the forests whispered ancient stories. When home was a sanctuary of nature, buzzing bees and wild flowers. Not road construction, building cranes and these white apartment walls.. where shiny new empty things fill the void of something long missing and the cries of everything dying. Thank you Dark Mountain and it's contributors, for stirring my guts, for ushering hope into the void.
October 1, 2017
Picked up for "We Are the Only Species We Have the Option of Being" (Douglas Hine in conversation with Anne Tagonist) without having much of a sense of what else this series was about or would include. Was blown away by the wisdom contained inside. So much food for thought! I'll be chewing for a while.
July 12, 2016
It figures that my last issue of Dark Mountain (I unsubscribed to save funds) would be their best to date. The short stories here are particularly gem-like and wonderful, and the more academic articles were free of the grad school obtuseness that has featured in previous issues. This is a fine collection with a worth intent--I'm certainly not quitting it due to lack of quality. I may return should my interests again swing their way.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews